1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charging device and method for commonly charging multiple digital electronic devices and, more particularly, to a charging device for commonly charging multiple digital electronic devices using an intelligent charging method that optimizes a number of charge cycles.
2. Description of the Related Art
In pursuit of a paperless environment and an augmented learning interest, many educational institutions have incorporated various electronic devices, such as media players, smart phones, notebook computers, tablet personal computers and the like, into the teaching environment. When operated in a teaching environment, those digital electronic devices rely on their own battery to supply power needed by the digital electronic devices. To simultaneously accommodate and charge multiple digital electronic devices, a charging device is required to do the job. However, when multiple digital electronic devices are simultaneously charged, the demanded current may overload an electricity distribution system supplying power for charging the digital electronic devices and may affect other electricity consuming appliances in the charging environment. To tackle the foregoing issue, multiple charging zones are divided, such that only a digital electronic device connected to one outlet strip can be charged in one charge cycle. Alternatively, an electricity distribution system connected to multiple outlet strips can be manually configured to simultaneously charge multiple digital electronic devices connected to the outlet strips only when the electricity distribution system is not overloaded.
As only the electronic digital devices connected to one outlet strip can be charged during a charge cycle, multiple charge cycles are required to charge all the digital electronic devices connected to all the outlet strips. When the electricity distribution system is not overloaded and is manually configured to simultaneously charge multiple digital electronic devices connected to the multiple outlet strips, such manual setting adds operation burden to users to configure the electricity distribution system to charge the digital electronic devices connected to each outlet strip once in each cycle, failing to be an optimized charging approach.